2. Contact Info

3. Dealer Selection

Come behind the scenes with the editors of Motor Trend Magazine, as we embark a jumbo road test designed to wring out the competition for the 2005 Car of the Year Award. Each participant underwent a full battery of instrumented tests at California Speedway in Fontana, including acceleration, braking, slalom, skidpad, and figure-eight evaluations. That completed, editors poked and prodded the cars, examining new features and discussing major points of interest. After each car’s physical, the judges took some personal seat time in each of the contestants, consisting of hot laps around a short dynamic evaluation course at the track. Finally we took the finalists off to a secret mountain hideaway in the Los Padres National Forest in Kern County, California. There, adjacent to the Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge, editors pushed buttons and probed limits to discover the one true winner.

To read more on the cars pictured here, grab the January 2005 copy of Motor Trend magazine, on newsstands beginning December 1, 2004.